I got in some new samples the other day of products that I have been offering for a while now, but never had samples of (bad photographer, BAD!).  I am in LOVE, I tell you.  Love.  So I decided to attempt some product photography, New England fall style.  Which meant Nolan and I went around gathering some gorgeous fall leaves from the park and spread them out as the backdrop to my photos.  This is the most styled shoot I have ever done.  Many thanks to my set designer, Nolan for his valued input such as “this leaf is really REALLY pretty.”

There are three products I’ll be highlighting, (from L-R) my new 5×5 brag book option,  the 10×10 flush mount coffee table album and the 10×10 layflat album.

Today we start with the flush mount.  From here on out, I would like all clients to get a flush mount album, okay?  Seriously.  Typically, this album is ordered for more special sessions – newborns, weddings, engagements, etc as it is my top of the line album.  But I would still like everyone to fall in love with it.  😉  It is absolutely stunning in person.  STUN-NING.  First let’s examine the cover.  There are lots of options including fabrics and leathers.  I chose a saffron leather cover for mine (again going back to my love of yellow right now).  This particular leather is super soft and supple.  Like buttah.  Take a look.  Gorgeous.

Now let’s look at the book itself.  Flushmounts are where the page / image is literally mounted to a thick page.  There is no bending these pages.  Super strong and sturdy.

The binding is gorgeous, nice and smooth with all of the pages lining up beautifully and the leather wrapping around.

And then you open the book.  Because of the way it is constructed, it lays flat open and displays your photos beautifully.  Look at this.  That is 20 inches by 10 inches of gorgeous album.  This also allows me to show a panoramic image as I will show you in another highlight of another book.  😉

This particular album I created using a designed layout.  They can be ornate and involved, they can be simple with one picture per page with a border.  I will be ordering an album next week for a gorgeous newborn session with all sorts of swirls and quotes and such and can’t wait to see it.  So trust me.  Consider the flush mount.  It’s the perfect way to forever preserve those memories!

As I get ready to change a few small things with the business, I thought I would take a moment to address watermarking.  A watermark is the copyright logo, statement, symbol, etc that is placed across a photo.  Usually (at the discretion of the photographer) it’s a reduced opacity so it’s not totally stark and bright, but it is noticeable.  It’s supposed to be noticeable.  That is a the point of a watermark.  Mine happens to be what is termed a “ribbon” watermark.  Makes sense – it looks like a ribbon across the photo with my business name and then one of my tag words as seen here:

It is usually right on the middle of the photo (unless it’s a close crop of a face then I adjust as I see fit) and for me, it covers the entire photo width-wise.  I always do this with client photos and I always do it with personal photos.  Yep, on my personal family blog, on ANYTHING that gets put on the internet at all, whether it be flickr, my private photo board etc, whether it be of my kids or a scenery shot or client work, it has a watermark.

The point of the watermark is to show ownership / copyright of the photo.  In a job like I do, it is so so important to copyright your work.  Let’s face it, we live in a world that loves social media.  Facebook, MySpace, blogs.  We are all over it.  We put our lives all over it, our work, our families.  Yet it is one of the easiest mediums to steal from.  Images can be taken, they can be saved, sometimes they can be printed.   They can be snagged from the internet or anywhere they are displayed and used for someone else’s personal gain.  Not only is this insulting to me personally and professionally, as it’s MY shot that someone would be taking, my work, my art, it is also dangerous to clients.  The photographs of their children can be used in ways and places they have no idea.   Not to scare people, but to make them aware, there is an entire HUGE online gaming world based out of Brazil called Orkut that uses pictures of kids as their avatars.  They find these pictures on the internet and use them.  Marketers have been known to snag non-watermarked photos.  There was a great story that came out last year around the holidays that illustrated the importance of this.  There was a family whose photo was snagged off of the internet and then used on a Czech grocery store advertisement!! (You can read all about it HERE)

Watermarking has to do with protecting MY work and protecting YOUR images.  If I put a watermark in the middle of the photo, people – strangers you don’t know, advertisers, etc are less likely to right click and save it.  It is difficult to edit and crop out watermarks that are centrally located.  If I give you web files with your digital packages, the ones with the watermarks are not only prepared for the web so they will display better, but they are watermarked to protect your images from people.  Let’s face it.  We have no idea who sees our stuff.  We can make things private, but there are ways around it.  I don’t know who sees my blog.  I average 2,000+ visits per week.  Even on my Facebook business page, I tell people that hey, I have over 1300 fans. I have no idea who 90% of them are, where they are from or what kind of people they are.  While I like to believe the best of everyone, let’s be realistic. 🙂  And if you have used one of my photos somewhere online, as long as the watermark is there and visible, I really honestly don’t care.

My watermark will be changing soon.  For all publicly displayed images (not client files that they purchase) I am adding the text “do not copy, save or print.”  Do I want to?  No, but again, I am being realistic and times are what they are.  So please, respect my copyright, respect your photographer’s copyright and respect each others copyright.  Leave the watermarks where they are.  They are there for a reason.